Message for the New Year 2011

To all the revolutionary forces and the Filipino people: I would like to extend my most ardent greetings on the occasion of the coming New Year. We approach 2011 in the face of intensifying crisis, poverty and suffering. As we have witnessed these past few months under the new Aquino government, we cannot expect any changes that would bring any good or relief to the toiling masses and the people.

With the New Year, let us renew our resolve to achieve revolutionary change. Revolution is the only light that bursts through the cloudy sky and gives hope to the people. Let us achieve many more of the brilliant revolutionary victories we have attained in the past years. In 2011, let us achieve new and bigger victories in all fields of struggle. Despite the hardship and pain, let us devote all our strength and abilities to the advancement and victory of the revolution.

On December 24, the Raipur district additional sessions court sentenced for life civil rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen, our party Politburo member Comrade Narayan Sanyal, trader Piyush Guha under IPC, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and UAPA implicating them in false cases. The life sentences were pronounced by B.P. Verma under IPC section 124 (sedition), 120 B (conspiracy) and many other kinds of sentences were pronounced under various sections of CSPCA and UAPA. The eight year sentence for Asit Sengupta was pronounced on the same day by O.P. Gupta. Both these judgments are the latest additions to the huge cache of anti-people, fascist repressive measures of the Indian ruling classes.

Sentencing for life our party Politburo member Comrade Narayan Sanyal, Binayak Sen, a doctor who had dedicated his life as a doctor serving the poor people selflessly, a prominent civil rights activist and the vice- president of PUCL and Piyush Guha, a trader belonging to Kolkata is the most shameless thing for the rulers to do even while boasting that this is the biggest democracy in the whole world. Opposing the repressive policies of the government, the fascist Salwa Judum, raising his voice for the repeal of the black law CSPSA and standing in support of the just peoples movements are the ‘crimes’ committed by Dr. Binayak Sen for which he has been punished with life sentence. When he was arrested in May 2007 and kept in jail for two years, immense protests were held and severe condemnations were issued by democratic sections, medical community, Nobel laureates and many others in India and abroad. Pronouncing this sentence ignoring all this can only mean that the fascist rulers are without any scruples or embarrassment issuing a threat to all the democratic, progressive and patriotic sections of our country. If responding positively towards people’s issues in a legal, democratic manner, serving the people sincerely and criticizing the anti-people policies of the government is ‘sedition’, then one can imagine what kind of ‘democracy’ is being practiced in this country and how dangerous it is for the people.

The eight year sentence for Asit Sengupta (editor of the Hindi version of 'A World To Win' which is published in various languages all over the world) who is languishing in jail since three years with the false accusation that he was participating in Maoist activities is nothing but stifling the Freedom of Press. Recently, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, DGP Viswaranjan, Bastar IG Longkumer and Dantewada SP Kalluri gang had published pamphlets under the name ‘Maa Danteswari Adivasi Swabhimani Manch’ and had openly declared that they would kill journalists SRK Pillai, Anil Sharma and Yaswant Rai along with democrats Himanshu Kumar and Arundhati Roy and had the audacity to declare that it is indeed their own doing! So much for the ‘rule of law’ harped upon by our rulers day in and day out!

Comrade Narayan Sanyal, a 73-year old veteran communist who began his revolutionary life in 1968 and has dedicated more than four decades of his life for the liberation of the oppressed people, is ailing with various health problems and has been languishing in the dark dungeons of the fascist Chhattisgarh government since five years. The Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram-Raman Singh terrorist gang is killing Maoist leaders in fake encounters and sentencing many of them to harsh punishments under black laws. They are subjected to physical and mental tortures in the inhuman conditions prevailing in jails.

On July 29, 2010, our party activist Comrade Malati @ Santi Priya and a worker Surendra Kosaria were sentenced to ten years imprisonment using false witnesses under the case that Maoist propaganda CDs were sent to the MLAs. Amitabh Bagchi, a Politburo member of our party and Comrade Kartik, a state committee member of West Bengal, incarcerated in Ranchi jail, were also sentenced to life imprisonment through fast track court in Jharkhand. On October 29, the AP government sentenced Comrade Panduranga Reddy and three others to four years imprisonment in the Alipiri case (attack on ex-CM Chandrababu) using false witnesses. Many more revolutionary activists and ordinary people are being sentenced to very harsh punishments including capital punishment by the reactionary courts serving the exploiting ruling classes. Comrades Sushil Roy and Kobad Gandhi who are senior leaders and ailing with various health problems and old age; comrades Shobha, Patitpavan Haldar, Pramod Mishra, Vijay, Asutosh, Balraj, Chintan, Biman, Bidhan, Chandi Sarkar, Balganesh, Jharkhand Abhen’s Jeetan Marandi and thousands of other comrades are denied bail, being implicated in false cases one after another and made to languishin jails for years together. In West Bengal, Comrade Swapan Das arrested under UAPA was denied health care in Jail and became the first martyr of this draconian law.

The UPA government bent on selling our natural and human resources to imperialist MNCs like Vedanta and to comprador bourgeoisie like Tata, Essar, Jindal, Mittal etc has declared CPI (Maoist) as the biggest internal security threat as it is standing in their way offering stiff resistance to this unlimited loot. As part of this, the government is carrying on vicious foul propaganda using its propaganda machine. Since August 2009, in the name of Operation Green Hunt the central and state governments are resorting to brutal attacks on the revolutionary movement and particularly adivasis are being massacred by deploying millions of police and paramilitary forces in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and other states. This offensive is carried on under the guidance and full support of imperialists, particularly the US imperialists. The exploiting rulers are using every means at their disposal to portray our party which is fighting with the lofty aim of establishing people’s government of democratic classes basing on the unity of worker-peasants by overthrowing the imperialists, bureaucratic comprador bourgeoisie and the feudal classes, as ‘terrorist’ and ‘traitor’. Why are the ministers, political leaders, big bourgeoisie and their brokers, the real traitors who are amassing billions of rupees in scams and stacking them in Swiss Banks shamelessly roaming in the corridors of power not booked under SEDITION? Why are all those criminals who perpetrated and facilitated the Bhopal Gas Tragedy not called CONSPIRATORS? How could striving for the liberation of the toiling masses become SEDITION? How could democrats who raised their voices and pens in support of people's movements be called CONSPIRATORS?

These sentences are nothing but a part of the bigger conspiracy of the ruling classes to eliminate all kinds of hurdles to their anti-people, unpatriotic and immoral neo-liberal economic policies. This is an alarm signal that fascist repression would intensify further in the near future. These judgments are an eye opener for those who believe and get deceived innocently that there is still some semblance of democracy in this country. Though the overt statements of the ruling gang declare that Maoist movement is their prime target, what is happening in reality is a fascist onslaught on progressive and democratic forces who wish for the welfare of the people and aspire to protect the interests of our country vis-à-vis the imperialists. Our party is appealing to the people to stand united against this offensive and defeat it through a determined fight.

The comprador governments are resorting to suppression of people’s movements and nationality liberation struggles using black laws like UAPA, CSPCA, MCOCA and AFSPA following in the footsteps of the US government which promulgated black laws like the Homeland Security Act. The reactionary legal system which had never bothered to book or sentence the saffron terrorists who had killed many innocent people in the Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and Ajmer Sharif bomb blasts or the scamsters and political gangsters involved in scams like 2G Spectrum (worth 1,76,000 crores of rupees), Commonwealth games, Adarsh housing society, Karnataka lands and dozens and dozens of other scams are eagerly sentencing revolutionaries, people’s leaders, democrats and activists of national liberation movements in Kashmir and North-East.

The CPI (Maoist) Central Committee is appealing to all democratic, patriotic forces, national liberation activists and to all civil rights activists, organizations, students, intellectuals, teachers, writers, artistes, doctors, lawyers, media friends, workers and peasants to come out on the streets condemning and opposing these judgments delivered through the reactionary legal system by the collusion of the UPA government at the centre and the BJP government in Chhattisgarh. We appeal to all of you to build united and militant agitations demanding the immediate repeal of UAPA, CSPCA, MCOCA and AFSPA. We appeal to all the progressive, democratic and revolutionary organizations, communities and individuals of various countries to condemn in severe terms this criminal act of the Indian ruling classes and express their vigorous protest in various democratic struggle forms. In the past the international community stood in strong solidarity with the Indian people’s movements and had condemned the arrest of Binayak Sen and demanded his immediate release. Now the time has come for it to play this role more solidly.

Our party calls upon the people to observe protest week all over the country from January 2 to 8 against these judgments by creatively taking up various protest activities including press conferences, statements, dharnas, rasta rokos, meetings, protest rallies, processions, signature campaigns, wearing black badges, waving black flags, burning of effigies etc., and to take up legal battles condemning severely the anti-people, traitorous and fascist policies of the ruling classes.

Our party is calling upon all our ranks, PLGA forces and revolutionary mass organizations to take up various protest forms on this occasion by mobilizing vast masses.

Our Central Committee is making it very clear that no call for bandh is being given as part of this protest week and is requesting the people and media not to believe the deliberate propaganda of the police to portray this as a bandh call.

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — If you ask MC Kash, he’s just speaking the truth. But Kashmir’s breakout rapper’s songs court rebellion and could land him in jail.

Kash calls himself a rebel who uses sharp rhymes and beats instead of stones or guns to protest India’s rule over the mostly Muslim region in the Himalayas.

Kash, 20, whose real name is Roushan Illahi, has won a fan base among Kashmir’s youth, whose summer uprising against Indian rule inspired his local hit “I Protest.”

The lyrics — “Tales from the dark side of a murderous regime, an endless occupation of our land an’ our dreams” — tread dangerously close to sedition in India, where questioning the country’s claim to the disputed region of Kashmir is illegal.

Minister for Peace and Reconstruction, Rakam Chemjong, on Wednesday said Nepal doesn't need the UN mission anymore for concluding the peace process.

Minister Chemjong said the government does not feel it necessary to extend the tenure of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN).

Speaking at an interaction programme in Dhankuta, minister Chemjong accused UNMIN of failing on several counts while monitoring the peace process.

According to him, the mission has been biased and that it is more loyal to the Unified CPN (Maoist).

Minister Chemjong mentioned that the Special Committee for supervison, integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist army combatants would be able to handle the remaining works of peace process after the UNMIN departs from Nepal.

If UNMIN does not remain and armies are not unified, the entire nation will be
pushed into conflict and at that time People\'s Liberation Army (PLA) and Nepal
Army (NA) will be on the same frontier putting arms on arms to fight against
the invaders.

There will be no options to be left before the Nepalese people than
to resist it. These are the versions of UCPN-Maoist standing committee member
Barsaman Pun Ananta in a telephone talk with the correspondent of Red Star
fortnightly.

The complexity in situation is being created by the care taker government
and the puppets of Indian power. The cause or unseen hand
behind the curtain is clear; however, the remedy to get rid off it is still in debate.

Only the unity of nationalist, progressive, leftist and the revolutionaries can
resist successfully the inevitable invasion of foreign power.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

In February 2010 prisoners at Yarl's Wood immigration prison organised a hunger strike. They demanded an end to indefinite and abusive imprisonment. Their courageous protest lasted five weeks, despite violent attacks by guards at the detention centre.

As retribution several people involved in the hunger strike were moved to prisons. Three of those targetted in this way are still behind bars: Denise McNeil, Sheree Wilson and Aminata Camara. They have been away from their families, friends and communities for too long.

Their struggle was “for everyone in detention”. We need to support those who take action on the inside. When they use prison to try to silence resistance we will fight back. At the start of a new year, let’s show them that they have our support and that the struggle for freedom goes on.

Several thousand people joined celebrations yesterday of the 42nd founding anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in a what was described as "one of the biggest celebrations of the revolutionary victories of the Filipino people exhibiting the continuing growth of the revolutionary movement led by the CPP."

At the same time, the CPP denounced the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP) "for setting-up checkpoints along the route to the site of the assembly to harass participants and dissuade them from proceeding to the site of the celebrations in violation of the spirit and intent of the 19-day ceasefire."

The whole day celebration was hosted by the National Democratic Front-Mindanao.

According to NDF-Mindanao spokesperson Jorge "Ka Oris" Madlos, a few more thousand people failed to join the celebrations because of the checkpoints setup by the military and police. "Checkpoints were setup by the 4th Infantry Division all over the Caraga region in a desperate attempt by the AFP to prevent the people from joining the celebrations of the CPP anniversary."

At around eight in the morning, traffic built up to around two kilometers along the main highway leading to San Agustin town, Surigao del Sur, as military and police operatives blocked scores of vehicles carrying participants. According to Ka Oris: "The military and police unreasonably blocked the people's free movement insisting on listing all the license numbers of vehicles, asking for registration papers and checking the license of drivers."

The military and police checkpoints only relented when reporters and cameramen from local and international media outfits arrived and witnessed the harassments.

"The attempts to stop people from joining the celebrations of the CPP violated the spirit and intent of the simultaneous ceasefire which, among others, aim at allowing personnel of both sides to be with their families and friends to hold celebrations during the holidays," added Ka Oris.

"Despite the harassments, the celebrations pushed through and was carried out successfully," added Ka Oris. Thousands of peasants and lumad people, fisherfolk, as well as workers and students from town centers joined a company of New People's Army (NPA) Red fighters in a field surrounded by coconut trees and rice paddies. "This shows the deep and widespread support of the people for the Communist Party and the revolutionary movement."

The occasion also served as an opportunity for Red fighters to be joined by their families.

According to the CPP, scores of other smaller assemblies were carried out in guerrilla fronts all over the country, as well as in factories, schools, offices, private homes and communities in cities and town centers.

Three weeks ago inmates at prisons across the state of Georgia staged an unprecedented protest, organized with the help of smuggled cell phones and text messages, demanding that they be provided basic necessities like heat and vegetables, as well as greater educational opportunities and access to their families.

Georgia imprisons more than 53,000 men and women, making it the eighth most incarcerated state in the U.S. on a per capita basis. And while some no doubt deserve to be separated from society, a plurality are imprisoned not for crimes like rape or murder, but for nonviolent drug offenses.

And as a delegation of officials from the ACLU and NAACP discovered when they met with some of the protesting prisoners last week, many of those behind bars for victimless crimes reported that they are often denied visitation with their loved ones and forced to pay for their own medications, despite the fact that they are not paid a cent for their labor. Inmates also say prisoners are routinely and unjustifiably denied parole, while suffering constant abuse at the hands of guards.

Speaking to Change.org, one inmate, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, said the protest – which entailed prisoners engaging in a work stoppage and refusing to leave their cells – has had a discernible impact, resulting in some minor but welcome improvements in conditions.

Housed at Telfair State Prison, an 1,160-bed facility in the center of the state, the prisoner says that after officials stopped their lock-down of the facility, “they immediately gave almost double portions on food trays.” They also stopped conducting the “everyday military-style inspection” of cells they engaged in prior to the protest, and “delivered commissary on time” for a change.

In addition, “The verbal abuse from staff has subsided some,” and prisoners are finally being provided adequate heat as outside temperatures inch closer to single digits.

The most dramatic difference, though, can perhaps be seen among the inmate population itself. While prisons are notoriously divided along racial lines, the inmate tells Change.org that right now “ethnicity is not a factor, although there is always an idiot in every bunch. But for the majority there is unity.” Prior to the protest, interracial strife was widespread, with “multiple racial stabbings weekly." Now attacks between the races have fallen to “almost nil.”

But unless conditions substantially improve, the inmate warns unrest could spill over into violence – which he notes is exactly what prison officials are hoping for, as it would immediately discredit the inmates' cause. But many prisoners, he says, “are young and have a lot of time on their hands, and they are truly uneducated [regarding] just how monstrous these people can be …. [whereas] I know that they are waiting for violence to occur.”

“However, those of us in leadership are holding them at bay.”

But there's only so much those who are already incarcerated can do to improve their conditions. Ensuring those behind bars are treated with dignity – which is not only morally right, but pragmatically wise in terms of reducing recidivism – requires that those on the outside ditch their indifference for activism.

And that activism need not be limited to contacting politicians and prison wardens -- it can, and should, extend to reaching out to prisoners themselves. As one incarcerated man, Johnnie Jones, recounted in a recent piece on the website Behind the Bars, which publishes letters and poems from prisoners, doing so can make all the difference in a convict's life.

"I have witnessed hardcore men cry like [babies] when shown kindness,” Jones wrote, describing a program where inmates are provided letters and drawings sent to them by school children. “Not one man in that program did not cry after reading the words of [encouragement] from those kids .... kindness and love are the two most important things that a convict needs in his [rehabilitation] process. He needs to know that someone loves him.”

In addition to writing inmates and calling prison officials – Change.org's Wendy Jason has provided a list of their phone numbers – those who wish to express their solidarity with Georgia's incarcerated men and women and their desire to see them rehabilitated, not dehumanized, can send a letter to officials with the Georgia Department of Corrections.

But will that really make a difference, one wonders – does outside lobbying and activism from concerned citizens really matter? “More than you could ever begin to fathom,” the Georgia inmate tells Change.org. “I would like [your readers] to know that many of us in this environment are still moral human beings,” he adds. “However, there is only so much we can do from in here.”

Democracy and Class Struggle presents some videos which report on the recent prison struggle in US followed by some of the writings of Kevin Rashid Johnson on the current US Prison System.

There has been limited coverage of the current US prison struggle not only in the bourgeois press but also on the Left which reflects a political weakness that needs to be rectified has this is an important frontline of struggle.

We see the spirit of comrade George Jackson in this current phase of struggle in the US prisons see his 1971 interview on prison struggle here :

My name is Shaka Zulu. I am the Chairman of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP), a revolutionary nationalist vanguard Party in the tradition of the original Black Panther Party. Our ideology is called Pantherism, illuminated by Marxist-Leninist- Maoism (MLM). Pantherism is the theory and practice of socialist revolution for all oppressed people across the world. Pantherism holds that in order to defeat our oppressors we must build base areas of social, cultural and political power in our own oppressed communities.

We see our Party as the 21st century embodiment of the original Black Panther Party (BPP). We have set up our Party Organization in a way that absorbs ALL who can help in the development of NABPP as a cutting edge proletarian vanguard Party. We are inviting you to put your talent and energy in a revolutionary vanguard Party. The many Panther formations that have sprung up across the country, while a good thing because it means that people are doing things to advance the national liberation struggle, cannot liberate the masses from the junk of bourgeois culture until we form a fighting party, an advance detachment of proletarian consciousness and activism.

We think that it is absolutely important for all of us to be united and together as Panthers, as one huge revolutionary family cemented with Panther Love. Panther Love is revolutionary love, liberating love, world changing love. We believe that Panther Love as a viable means of unity will enable us to better advance our strategy of “Turn the Iron Houses of Oppression into Schools of Liberation, and the Oppressed Communities into Base Areas of Cultural, Social and Political Revolution.”

We have to be together to collectively deal the avarice vampire monopoly capitalist a final death blow. While we fight and divide at the bottom, the monopoly capitalist are cooperating locally and globally to maintain capitalist imperialism oppression and domination over places like Afrika, Central Asia, Latin Amerika, the Middle East, and the various oppressed nations in empireland. We cannot defeat them by being scattered and loose. We need a powerful force such as democratic centralism. Our struggle is not a race struggle, but a class struggle, an international struggle against capitalist imperialist structures which perpetuate the economic exploitation of resources, lands, markets, wage-workers, and the environment.

The Maoist Movement is international–which means that if we intend on sowing seeds of world socialist revolution–we should be proud to raise the Red flag from a position of unity.

In the Party’s newspaper Right On! #1, we stated that “Understand¬ing the role that the party must play is also understanding the role others must play and how these roles fit together to serve the highest interests of humanity. The Party cannot be all things. Its special purpose is to represent the future in the movement of the present and illuminate the path forward. It is a Black revolutionary nationalist party that recognizes that class struggle and socialist revolution is the path forward.”

The solution to all of our problems come down to revolution, socialist revolution and the correct practice of Pantherism, which is the 21st century ideology of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-PC (NABPP). So while the monopoly capitalist class oppressors remain united, our ranks exude the death of division and petty squabbles over who hold the principle political line. It comes down to really understanding the tricks the ruling class historically, consistently use to keep us divided.

Comrade Tom Big Warrior stated so eloquently in his forward to “Black Youth and the Criminalization of a Generation” that the oppressors have a strategy that unite neo-liberals and neo-conservatives all over the world. And in order to defeat them, we must develop our strategy–of building base areas of cultural, social, and political revolution–of going amongst the people and organizing and mobilizing them to take on the historic mission of making revolution.

Comrades! We have a marvelous role to play, an historic task to complete, a great opportunity to turn our single fingers into a fist of revolutionary unity by getting together under the leadership of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP). We need you! We invite all sincere, honest, loyal Comrades to struggle with us to free New Afrikan people and all oppressed people across the world. Pantherism is the key here.

We leave you with these words from Comrade Huey: “But to achieve such freedom, we must all start at the bottom. We must fight as brothers [sisters], each in our own community or ghetto, but against the common enemy that deprives’ us of our identity, that is, that exploits us economically, politically, culturally. We are then both nationalist and internationalist. We fight for our freedom in our own terrain, but in alliance with everyone who fights: our enemy, not just because we need each other tactically but because we are brothers [sisters].”

Monday, December 27, 2010

The New Afrikan Black Panther Party is one of the first organizations to reemerge in the U.S., since the destruction of the Black Panther Party in the 1970s, that fully embraces the original program of the BPP and has clearly stated its intention to organize oppressed people for socialist revolution. Claiming the ideology of Pantherism which they indicate to be illuminated by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

Below is article by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson of the prison chapter of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party on US Prisons and Torture, we shall publish more of this comrades writings in future..

Most people don’t quite relate US prisons to government-sponsored torture. We can thank the mainstream corporate media and politicians for this. Since the 1960s and 1970s they’ve persistently projected the false image of US prisons as resorts where criminal predators eat chips, lift weights, and watch videos all day, much like the images given of slavery as an experience that Black folks actually enjoyed. These false images are sustainable because the real world of prisons is a hidden one, concealed behind walls and razor wire, inaccessible to the public.

There’s also a connection between prison and slavery. The plantation system actually merged with the penitentiary system after the Civil War and the torture and savagery, especially beatings, remained a mainstay. In fact at the end of the Civil War slavery was for the first time authorized by the US constitution in the 13th amendment, which authorized the government to treat convicts as slaves. So the newly “freed” Blacks were simply targeted with criminal prosecutions and then placed right back into bondage to serve as contract laborers, on chain gangs, and on prison plantations. Today, in a mad rush to find cheap labor, corporate Amerika looks to prisons to serve as a source of free labor pools. But let’s look at torture.

Brutality and torture are the common features of US prisons. Nothing coming out of Guantánamo Bay or Abu Ghraib has matched the images that showed the savage torture of prisoners following the Attica uprising in 1971. And what about California’s Corcoran state prison where guards set up fights between prisoners, gambled on the outcomes and then shot the prisoners for fighting? Some 43 were shot and 8 killed just between 1989 and 1994. Others were shot and killed with no justification. Then there’s the decades-long torture of some 135 New Afrikan (Black) males inside “Area 2” of Chicago’s jail. The exposure of the false confessions resulting from this torture led to the removal of 164 men from Illinois’s death row and, in four cases, the granting of full pardons. These are documented situations.

As during slavery, sexual abuse by officials in US prisons is prevalent.1 There has long been a nationwide scandal surrounding women prisoners being raped by male guards.2 Then there’s the sexual humiliation attendant to abusive strip searches, which are often accompanied by degrading verbal abuse. All this is exacerbated by complete denial of voluntary heterosexual relations. And there’s a genocidal component to this and to the vast targeting of virile-aged youth of color for lengthy imprisonments where they cease to be able to reproduce –- and in an environment where HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis abound while preventive aid is nonexistent and medical care substandard to nonexistent.

But there’s a higher grade of torture. After World War II western governments established an aversion to physical torture, which they embodied in the charter and treaties of their newly established United Nations. This was brought on by the embarrassment and guilt of the Allied Western nations who had stood by passively while the German Nazis tortured and conducted gruesome experiments on Jews and other Germans (disabled people, dissidents) as well as Slavs, Poles, and Gypsies.3 On account of this, the newly established CIA became very interested in developing less physically evident methods of mentally breaking and brainwashing enemies. As a result, the CIA and the Defense Department funded several studies with independent, Harvard University, National Institute of Mental Health, and other psychiatrists and psychologists.

In February 2010 prisoners at Yarl's Wood immigration prison organised a hunger strike. They demanded an end to indefinite and abusive imprisonment. Their courageous protest lasted five weeks, despite violent attacks by guards at the detention centre.

As retribution several people involved in the hunger strike were moved to prisons. Three of those targetted in this way are still behind bars: Denise McNeil, Sheree Wilson and Aminata Camara. They have been away from their families, friends and communities for too long.

Their struggle was “for everyone in detention”. We need to support those who take action on the inside. When they use prison to try to silence resistance we will fight back. At the start of a new year, let’s show them that they have our support and that the struggle for freedom goes on.

CONDEMN UNEQUIVOCALLY THE MURDER OF JUSTICE BY THE SESSIONS COURT IN RAIPUR IN THE BINAYAK SEN CASE!

LET US UNITEDLY FIGHT TO REPEAL ALL FASCIST DRACONIAN LAWS INCLUDING UAPA AND THE CHHATTISGARH SPECIAL PUBLIC SECURITY ACT!

The Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) condemns unequivocally the murder of justice in the case of Dr. Binayak Sen, a people’s doctor and one of the first civil libertarians to expose the state sponsored Salwa Judum that was undertaken by the BJP government on the tribal people in Chhattisgarh and ably supported by the Congress which is the opposition party in the state. In fact Dr. Sen while also exposing one of the worst cases in post-47 India of malnutrition and total neglect of the everyday life of the tribal people in the region showed the world the shocking story that was slowly unfolding—a slow genocide of the people in this region. And along with this slow genocide was the barbaric onslaught of the state sponsored Salwa Judum. Yes it was the voice of conviction of Dr. Binayak Sen against this murder, rape and loot of the tribal people that arouse the conscience of the people of the subcontinent as well as all democratic and freedom loving people of the world. To condemn such a person to life imprisonment u/s of 120(B), 124(A) of the IPC and 1,2,3,5, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and Sec 39 (2) of the UAPA (2004 amended) without even an iota of evidence brings once again forth the real face of Indian democracy with the judiciary reflecting the abysmal nadir to which the system has convoluted iself to.

All supposed pillars of democracy of the Indian state are increasingly proving to be hollow for the common people fighting for their livelihoods and those who raise the issues of the most exploited, and oppressed being the target of ire of a state that is day by day churning out more and more anti-people policies and supplementing it with a penal system teethed with the worst draconian laws. The case of Dr. Binayak Sen is a reminder to every democratic and freedom loving people of the subcontinent to once again raise their voice unitedly against such a penal state that is assuming fascist proportions. Notwithstanding the fact that about 22 noble prize winners from all over the world had sought his immediate freedom and lauded the exemplary work Dr. Sen had in the medical sciences, in popularising it among the poorest of the poor, and in providing the best of treatment to the impoverished adivasis in Central India, what the state could give him in return was life imprisonment for a case that hardly has any evidence!

This is the same state that has given blanket protection for all the scamsters and looters, be it the politician, bureaucrat, coporate honchos, and last but not the least judges right from the sessions court to the highest seat of justice in India.

And naturally what can a doctor who is stubborn enough to go to the most impoverished regions of ‘Shining India’ and work among the poorest of the poor for their betterment, let alone survival expect from a system which was always living in a world of denial about the existence of such a world! And his only crime—that he had dared the criminal negligence of a state which had blood in its hands of a slow, but cold and calculated genocide of a people through systematically denying any opportunity to live a life of dignity!

It is high time that all democratic and freedom loving people should join hands to raise their voice against the mockery of justice and once again fight to put an end to all such draconian laws of colonial vinatage. Today it is Dr. Binayak Sen. Tomorrow it can be anyone of us.

Friday, December 24, 2010

“A couple of years for the bosses of Union Carbide and a life sentence for Binayak Sen,” said celebrated writer and activist Arundhati Roy, referring to the sentence handed down to those accused in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984.

“After producing Marx's Das Kapital and a letter from the Indian Social Institute as evidence against him, the crisis of Indian democracydoes not get more dangerous than this,” Ms. Roy said, referring to the quality of the evidence marshalled by the police in their case against Dr. Sen.

PHR and dozens of other human rights and medical organizations have repeatedly called for the release of the doctor who was tried for alleged conspiracy against the State. Dr. Sen was arrested in 2007, detained for two years, and released on bail in May 2009. In 2008, he was awarded the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights by the Global Health Council. Sen was unable to attend the ceremony in Washington that year but his wife, Dr. Ilina Sen, received the honor on his behalf.

PHR calls on those involved in the decisions related Dr. Sen’s plight to recognize that the case has involved innuendo and politicized charges from the very beginning. Many following the trial, including Indian journalists for major national newspapers have described the trial as “farcical.”

Today a Raipur Additional District and Sessions Court held Dr Binayak Sen and two other people guilty of treason, and sentenced them to life imprisonment for trying to help Naxals establish a network to fight the state.The court pronounced the verdict convicting Dr Binayak Sen, Naxal ideologue Narayan Sanyal and Kolkata businessman Piyush Guha guilty of treason and waging war against the state. Dr Sen was arrested soon after the verdict was pronounced.

Dr. Binayak Sen, a doctor of the working class and civil rights activist in Chattisgarh, was arrested under the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in May 2007. He remained in prison for full two years, before being released in May 2009. The whole charade of the Chattisgarh law enforcement machinery was fully played out in full public eye over this whole period. Today, with the conviction of Dr. Sen, another chapter in the charade is completed.

This case received international publicity as an example of state repression of any dissent. Dr. Sen, as the state General Secretary and national Vice President of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties was and remains one of the most prominent civil rights defenders in the country. In convicting him, the Indian state is convicting democratic rights in the country. It is, as Dr. Sen’s wife Ilina said, a “sad day for Indian democracy”.

Over the past month the case of the prosecution was given wide publicity, for the blatant falsehoods and preposterous claims made by it. For example, a email message from Ilina Sen to the Indian Social Institute (ISI) in Delhi, a prominent institution working on human rights was claimed by the prosecution as proof of contact with the ISI in Pakistan. This clearly shows the total lack of police

investigation, and in fact, the disregard for all norms of good legal practices exhibited by the Chattisgarh state. It shows the arrogance of a state machinery, secure in the belief that it cannot be held accountable for its actions, and has unchallenged right to take away the liberty of any person it holds as opposed to it. In the context today, when state and big business interests are so closely linked, any form of opposition to big business and capital, particularly by the poorest sections of society, is readily seen as anti-state. The numerous draconian laws against dissent, enacted across the country, are examples of a growing repression by the state of all forces opposed to its policies of “development” – that only increases the displacement and destitution of the poor.

That the judiciary which is supposed to mediate on behalf of those denied justice has today handed out this judgment condemning a defender of human rights. In a situation today when the naked complicity between business interests and the state is being brought out daily, the responsibility of the judiciary to uphold and defend the rights of the people, and in particular defend the rights of human right defenders cannot be overstated. It is this responsibility that has been seriously challenged by the Sessions Courts in Chattisgarh today.

NTUI calls upon the UPA Government to appeal the Raipur Court order in defence of the rights of citizens provided for in the constitution.

NTUI strongly condemns this conviction and will continue the fight to release Dr. Sen.

The Release Binayak Sen committee Pune deprecates the totally unexpectedand unjust verdict of holding Dr. Sen guilty and awarding him the life sentence. This punishment, given without a shred of any incriminating evidence, will erode the credibility of the judicial system and will also in still fear into anyone who legitimately questions the trampling of human rights by the police and other government agencies. Great injustice has beendone, not only to Dr Sen but also to the democratic fabric of this country.

It is very clear that the various allegations against Dr. Sen have beenwidely held as baseless and ridiculous. For example, it was alleged that he was a Naxalite accomplice on the grounds that he met Narayan Sanyal manytimes in Jail. The fact is Dr. Sen met this ailing 70 year old under trial to give him medical advice, to discuss with him the plan of treatment and as PUCL vice president, also to discuss his legal case. The meetings were all in the presence of jail officials. The letter seized from Dr. Sen’s houseand which was produced as an evidence against Dr. Sen was a post card sent by Sanyal to Dr. Sen that had passed thr’ the jail scrutiny and says”Yesterday I talked with Supdt. of police and Jailer and ask them to permit to visit me at least once in a week, and they agreed.—-”

The real ‘crime’ of Binayak Sen is his critique of the ‘Salwa Judum’s violent activities in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. The immediate cause was Binayak and PUCL’s exposure of the gunning down of 12 innocent adivasi youths in Santoshpur village by the Chhattisgarh Police on March 31,2007.

PUCL has been demanding the withdrawal of the Chhattisgarh SpecialPublic Security Act (CSPSA) under which Dr. Sen was charged. Various political parties, peoples’ organisations, journalists’ associations and both national and international human rights organisations have pointed out the unconstitutional and repressive features of this Act. Among its arbitrary and dangerous features are the vague definitions of “illegal” and”unlawful” activities. The definitions are such that even peaceful forms of democratic protest and ordinary civil disobedience can be brought under its purview and declared “unlawful activity” and any protesting group can bedeclared “unlawful”.

We demand that justice be done to Dr. Sen, Indian Judicial system and to Indian Democracy.

The truce began on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1914, when German troops began decorating the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres, Belgium, for Christmas. They began by placing candles on trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols, most notably Stille Nacht (Silent Night). The British troops in the trenches across from them responded by singing English carols. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were calls for visits across the "No Man's Land" where small gifts were exchanged — whisky, jam, cigars, chocolate, and the like. The artillery in the region fell silent that night. The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently-fallen soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties.
Proper burials took place as soldiers from both sides mourned the dead together and paid their respects. At one funeral in No Man's Land, soldiers from both sides gathered and read a passage from the 23rd Psalm: The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
The truce spread to other areas of the lines, and there are many stories of football matches between the opposing forces. The film Joyeux Noël suggests that letters sent home from both British and German soldiers related that the score was 3-2 in favour of the Germans. Lenin, the leader of the working class revolution in Russia, heard about the Christmas truce. He pointed out that if there were organizations prepared to fight for such a policy among the soldiers of all the belligerent nations, there might have been a quick end to the world war in favor of the working masses. Lenin wrote, “Try to imagine Hyndman, Guesde, Vandervelde, Plekhanov, Kautsky and the rest [leaders of so-called socialist parties that supported the world war] – instead of aiding the bourgeoisie (something they are now engaged in – forming an international committee to agitate for fraternization and attempts to establish friendly relations between the socialists of the belligerent countries, both in the trenches and among the troops in general. What would the results be several months from now?”